Aha, I see what I was missing the other day with "studni". As it's translated often as "a well", for instance an "artesian well", "shaft" makes perfect sense, since a well in the ground is nothing other than a shaft upward from which (as well as downward, of course) water is transported:-) My oversight. Skimmed the sentence too fast.

"Zeszedlem" is correct according to my PIW. For example, in spoken slang, I've sometimes heard spoken "poszlem" instead of "poszEDlem" however as far as I learned, the latter is the grammatically correct form. "Poszlem" would not be acceptable in written language.

Personally I prefer the second or the first English translation but then again, my Polish isn't the greatest as I've forgotten many words and phrases. (was quite young when we left) My vocabulary is probably at a teenager's level.

Solaris was one my very first sci-fi novels and Lem is the reason I became interested in the genre.

prefer the second or the first English translation but then again, my Polish isn't the greatest

well the translation should take into consideration the preferences of the target audience first and foremost... and the elements of good style differ in different languages. There's also the question of how close the author adheres to normative styles of the language (and how native readers perceive that).

Yet another question is that for a polycentric language like English, styles can offer differ from one variety to another. A translation that reads wonderfully well for a British reader might be clunky and awkward for an American (and vice versa).

Always a super tough call when translating, isn't it. Omitting original text in translation can of course sometimes substantially alter the intended meaning.Being a translator, I'm faced with these issues on a regular basis. Providing a viable alternative is critical. Perhaps "szyb" IS the dictionary version of "shaft", yet the author apparently wrote "studni" ( if transcribed accurately by zzjing) and so one would have to be creative rather than stuck in the limbo of the translator's eternal enemy, dictionary translation:-)

It's one of the most interesting parts.... anyhoo, after some googling..... it seems that a studnia on a ship is a moon pool* (or at least one use of the word in relation to ships) which makes me think that maybe 'hatch' might be a better translation than shaft... of course there might be other things on ships that could be referred to as 'studnia' and who knows how that translates into the context of a space ship...